Top 5 Things
Today we are taking a look at the top 5 most powerful army in the world. We have compiled data from armies around the world to find out who the current top 5 most powerful are. Our list takes into account different factors, including each nation's potential war making capability across land, sea and air, as well as it's resource and finance.
As of 2017, the land of the free has one of the largest army in the world with 14,00,000 active personnel and 11,00,000 reserve personnel. Alongside its active ground force army, it is the world leader in aircraft production with a total fleet of 19 aircraft carriers. That's more than any other country on this list.
But how can the US afford this? Well. it spends a whopping $600 billion annually to fund its army forces and overseas contingencies operations. The US also implements cutting edge technology like the Navy,s new Railgun which has the potential to hit a target over 160 kilometers away.
When the Vladimir Putin came in to power 2000, the Russian army under went a dramatic face-lift, 19 years on, its bigger, stronger and better equipped that at any time. Since the end of the Cold war. It has the world's largest tank fleet with a staggering 15400 tanks and the second largest aircraft fleet, with 3547 aircraft. The most popular of this is the USSR made Sukhoi Su-27, which can carry up to 8 air-to-air missiles. The world got a glimpse of Putin's new army in 2014 when little green men with gleaming new uniforms and weapons annexed Crimea an a relatively bloodless but extremely efficient operation which lasted just 24 days.
However, Russia still lags far behind the United States in total power is terms of technology with much of it's vast arsenal still made up of aging Soviet-designed equipment.
In the past few decades, the Chinese army has grown rapidly in terms of size and capability. With a population of 1.3 billion to draw from, China has over 2.3 million active personnel with an additional 1.1 million as reserves and army police. So, in terms of man power China has the biggest army in the world but, it is plagued by mobility problems. It still largely relies on train as it has very few transportation across the mainland as it has very few transport helicopters. As it stands in 2017, China has had unprecedented success wit cyber warfare. In 2015, the US office of personnel management announced that it had been the target of a data breach by the Chinese government who had targeted the records of as many as 21.5 million people. China also has innovating anti-space capabilities.
In 2014, Britain's ministry of Defense projected a global scenario which stated that by 2045 India could become a global army power with the 3rd largest defense expenditure pegged at 654 billion US dollars. As of 2015 India is the world's largest importer of army goods. It has ballistic missiles with a range capable of hitting all of Pakistan and most of China and i has around 90-110 nuclear warheads. It also has two aircraft carriers, while Russia and China only have one each. In August 2016, India commissioned its first nuclear power ballistic missile submarine "The INS Arihant" which has 12k-15 missiles with a range of 750 km.
India's armed forces are steadily undergoing modernization investing in areas such as futuristic soldier system and missile defense system.
France has 2,05,000 active front line personnel. But the real disparity is in fixed wing aircraft & fleet strength. In total, France has 1282 aircraft to the UK's 879. This includes 140 of the multi-role fighter aircraft 'The Dassault Rafale' capable of carrying ASMP-A medium-range nuclear cruise missile. France has the Charles De Gaulle, which is the only nuclear powered outside of the US navy. In 2015, Charles De Gaulle was deployed twice to fight the Islamic State Trance is also looking to expand its cyber warfare capabilities. In January 2017, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the French army would host 2,600 digital soldier by 2019, with the support of an additional 600 cyber experts.
